


You don't need wings to fly (you need a whole lot more)

by Rowantreeisme



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Arc Reactor, Attempt at Humor, Gen, Happy Ending, Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant, Team Bonding, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 14:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11359770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rowantreeisme/pseuds/Rowantreeisme
Summary: My take on wingfic, more specifically, how something like the arc reactor would affect a winged human's ability to fly.





	You don't need wings to fly (you need a whole lot more)

Tony stared at his reflection, avoiding the blue glow from the _thing_  in his chest, muffled by his shirt and the cast pressing his arm to his front, at his wings, folded tightly behind him. 

Scratched, and scared, but largely unharmed.

Because they hadn't  _needed_  to harm them. 

He flexed them experimentally, trying to bring them up and out, and winced at how the movement pulled at his chest, at the flight muscles they’d _cut out_ , the places where his sternum was no longer the anchor he needed it to be.

He looked and remembered flying, air in his face and sun on his back and laughing with Rhodey or Pepper or Happy.

They hadn’t needed to clip his wings, mutilate them like Yinsen’s had been, to prevent them from flying away. 

The ruined muscles in his chest, his lungs and heart, did that for him.

He looked and remembered falling, a metal suit, arcing into the sky only to crash back down, unable to use his wings to brake for fear of the force tearing his chest apart.

He might not be able to fly under his own power ever again, but like _hell_  that was going to stop him from trying.

He could _fly_.

He could fly, and it might not be the same as flying under his own power, not anywhere near it, but there was still something that felt larger than him, larger than almost _everything_ , about shooting through the air on something _he’d_  built, far faster than he’d ever gone before.

He’d almost died, he’d been _so close_ , less than a foot away from pavement and even the most advanced armor in the world couldn’t have saved him from that and he’d never felt so _alive_.

* * *

He’d outed himself as Iron Man, a _superhero_ , and he held his wings up high despite the pain in his chest, the reactor carefully concealed beneath layers of shirts.

He’d nearly died, but instead of the exhilaration from his first flight, or driving too fast on winding roads, he just felt tired. 

That, more than anything, cemented his decision.

No one was going to know he couldn’t fly. If they did, it would just be another weakness, another thing people could use to hurt him.

* * *

His wings drooped all the time now, the palladium exhausting him too much for him to keep up the ploy of strong, _normal_  wings.

He knew Natalie wasn’t who she said she was, seriously, a woman who claimed to have grown up in LA, and spend a good amount of time in Japan flinching at an earthquake, but able to take Happy down in half a second flat?

Whichever government organisation she belonged to probably suspected, or at least that the poisoning was making him too sick to fly, but as long they didn’t know the _truth,_ he could…

Well, _live with it_  was probably a poor choice of words. 

At least the company and Iron Man were in good hands, and if those went to shit, his bots would always survive him.

The world would be just fine without him.

* * *

You know, it really didn’t occur to him how much he _didn’t_  want to die now that _not dying_  was a legitimate option. 

An option he was going to take. 

He didn’t bother waiting for JARVIS to finish running tests on the new core before shoving it into his chest, it wasn’t like it could be any _more_  fatal than the old one, and the first thing he noticed was the _energy_. His wings straightened for the first time in months, and he grinned.

The second thing was the coconut.

_That_  was a little weird. 

* * *

A god had thrown him out a window. 

Fantastic. Really, that was just great. He’d been meaning to test the Mk. 6 deployment system, and what better time to do that than falling to his death.

He hoped it wouldn’t be to his death. Then everyone would _know_ that he couldn’t fly, Rogers with his sneer and cutting words, _I know men worth 10 of you. Men who don’t need a fancy suit because they’re too lazy to fly,_ Pepper and Rhodey and Happy with their genuine _care_.Well, it was good to know that whatever report they’d given Rogers, they either hadn’t figured it out, or left it out.

He kept his wings close behind him, but spread his arms and legs to stabilise himself as the armour locked onto his bracelets. “There’s one other person you pissed off. His name was Phil.” He said, letting his armor-covered wings stretch out to their full length, aiming a repulsor at Loki.

That asshole was going to  _pay_.

* * *

They’d won. He’d gone to space and came back out and they’d _won_.

The Avengers, as they were apparently calling themselves, moved into the tower. He knew most of them didn’t have a home to call their own, a roost, a nest, and he _liked_  them. 

And so, they became an actual _team_.

* * *

Maybe, Tony thought, as he hung onto the metal bar next to the gaping hole in the jet, the suit long gone and as Steve, the only one left in the jet with him, urged him to jump, maybe keeping the whole flightlessness thing a secret  _hadn’t_  been the best idea. 

Steve was still shouting at him, the words lost over the roar of wind, but Tony got the gist. Steve grabbed his arm and tugged, moving closer, and Tony shook his head, because he did not want to die impaled on a pine tree in the middle of nowhere. 

Steve furrowd his brow, and even though his head was right next to Tony’s, he still had to yell to make himself heard. “WE NEED TO JUMP.” He shouted, his eyes _pleading_.

“I CAN’T,” Tony replied. Steve frowned. “I CAN’T FLY. YOU GO.” He said, and emotions flashed over Steve’s face, confusion and anger and resignation, and Tony briefly rued the fact that the parachutes had been concealed in the piece of wall that was currently debris on a mountain somewhere west of them before Steve grabbed him around the middle, and hurled them both out of the plane.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?” He yelled, trying to free himself because he could die, that was fine (well, not fine, but he was in denial), but he was _not_  going to bring Steve down with him. Thanks to Steve’s stubbornness, super strength, and the fact that his arms were crushed against Steve’s chest, he didn’t have much luck. 

Steve didn’t respond, and Tony couldn’t see anything, just navy uniform and gold hair and gold feathers, but he felt them slowing down, felt Steve’s chest heaving with the effort, and before he knew it, they had landed.

An actual landing, no blood or injury or broken trees, But Tony still stumbled when Steve finally let go of him.

Before either of them could say anything, there was a flash of red through the trees, an emergency flare arcing through the skies. Steve turned to him, expectant, and gestured to what he obviously thought was a trail, but was really, really not. “They’re not far. We can walk.” Steve said, like Tony had a _choice_.

So, they walked.

* * *

“So…” Steve started as he ducked under a pine branch. 

Tony sighed. Well, it wasn’t as if he’d not know that Steve would try to talk about this eventually. “I can’t fly.” He said, mostly just wanting to get the conversation over with.

Steve turned, brow furrowed, but he didn’t look upset or disappointed or anything that Tony had been expecting, just confused. His eyes flickered between Tony’s wings, and his face, and back, and it was like Tony could _see_  the thought process going on in his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but Tony beat him to it, tapping the reactor. “This thing replaces a good portion of my sternum. Even if I _could_  regrow all the flight muscles, there wouldn’t be anything for them to anchor to. Even If I could take this out, replace the chunk of sternum, _and_  regrow the muscle, my lungs and heart would still be too fucked up to get them enough oxygen.” He explained, honestly a little _relieved_  to say it. “I’m just not strong enough.” He smiled, rueful and self-deprecating.

All Steve said was, “Oh,” And he turned back to continue walking. It seemed like the conversation was over, but Tony could tell that Steve wanted to say something, ask something.

“Just _ask_.” He snapped, annoyed.Steve’s head whirled back around, face flushed in embarrassment and eyes wide. 

“If-” Steve started, and cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you have any parachutes? In the plane?” He asked, and he sounded so _earnestly_  confused.

“ _That’s_  your question?” Tony blurted and waved his hands, trying to get Steve to ignore what he just said. “And, I _did_  have parachutes. I’m sure you can guess which wall they were in.” He said, and Steve nodded, like that made perfect sense, before turning back to the trail Tony could _still_ swear didn’t actually exist. “That’s it? You’re not-”

“I’m not.” Steve agreed, not turning back around. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not a liability. It hasn’t mattered until now, has it?” Steve asked, but didn’t pause long enough to let Tony respond. “Thank you for telling me.” He said, and that was that.

* * *

Tony was sitting on the busted suitcase suit around a fire that Steve had made while the team waited for SHIELD to pick them up. The members of the Hydra cell that had been camped out here and that had shot them down were tied to a tree, no longer a threat.

He took a bite out of his piece of duck, chewed slowly, and swallowed. He cleared his throat, and it was so loud in the otherwise silient nighttime that everyone looked up at him. “I can’t fly. Just thought you guys should know.” He said, and waited on the reactions.

There was… surprising little. Thor just nodded sagely and held up Moljnir, his lack of wings a glaring hole behind him. “I thought as much,” Bruce said, at the same time Natasha spoke up.

“So it wasn’t the palladium?” She asked, and tilted her head when he nodded. 

Clint… looked mildly constipated, face twisted like he was trying to solve a particularly hard math problem. “Wait, then why didn’t-”

“Oh my _god_ , there were parachutes on the jet, I am not an idiot, they were in the wall that got exploded!” Tony snapped, throwing his hands in the air, but grinning. Clint accepted that, and grinned back before trying to steal a piece of duck from Natasha. It didn’t go well for him.

 

And, that was that. He’d told Pepper and Rhodey as well, who confessed that they’d known all along.

In the end, the only thing that changed was the varied location of the parachutes in the quinjet.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've ever looked at a bird skeleton, you can see that their sternum is really important. It looks like a shark fin, kinda, with much more surface area than a human's so that the flight muscles can anchor properly. Honestly, with the reactor, I'm surprised that Tony can even move his arms, much less have the strength needed to fly. 
> 
> Come vist me on [Tumblr!](https://rowantreewrites.tumblr.com/)


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